Blaster Master:The Continuing Story
by Zap Rowsdower
Summary: Blaster Master (Chapter 1 only)


This story is dedicated to F.X. Nine, alias Al Singer, alias that small group of people in Scholastic who wrote the original Blaster Master story. This one's for you.  
  
  
  
Blaster Master: The continuing Story  
By Zap Rowsdower  
CHAPTER 1  
It was happening again. Slowly the black ooze that was wrapped around Jason's feet and was slowly pulling him under, and for some odd reason he couldn't move. There was this voice, one that sounded very familiar, almost like he knew it in the background. A mans voice. One that he should know but didn't and cant put his finger on who it would belong to anyway. Fortunately he knew what was going to happen next. He all ways woke up after he was sucked in. But wait! Now there was a new sound. Like something screaming, but not something human, something that sounded more like an animal. A trapped one trying to get out of a cage. And the scream was getting louder, and louder. It seemed like the farther down he got into the black slime the louder the screams got. They were to get so loud that they began to hurt his ears. The glass on his helmet started to crack and finally just exploded outward letting all of the thick black slime into Jason's suit. He held his breath as it covered his nose and finally his eyes. Then he realized, with a start, that this couldn't possibly be a dream...  
  
  
He woke up sitting, up trying to remember where he was. The dreams had been plaguing him for two weeks now, and he was slowly getting used to them. But he had never had one like that. It was too real to be a dream. And then he heard the scream. It was identical to the one that was in his dream. Only this time it wasn't coming from all around him. It was coming from the tank his pet frog, Fred, was kept in. Leaning over and turning on his light he saw that Fred was trying to escape. He was jumping and hitting his head on the side of the tank in some sort of attempt to get out. And he was making that same screaming noise.  
Jason got out of bed and walked over to the tank and stared into it. His pet was sure going crazy in there.  
'Hey, what's up? You cant get out like that,' Jason said into the tank. Almost immediately his frog stopped jumping and stood still staring straight up at the ceiling.   
'Well that was strange,' thought Jason to himself. Jason had had Fred all his life and had never seen him act so strange. Sure Fred was strange. He was bigger and stronger that all of the other frogs that he had seen. And the fact that he had lived as long as Jason himself was something even stranger. Now it had started to rain. He figured that with all of the advances that science had made since the super computer of NORAD had been started in 2509, ten years ago, they still couldn't control the weather.   
Or the earthquakes. The bizarre quakes had been springing up all over the place and doing some serious damage. The Supercomputer on the other hand had said not to worry about any of the quakes and that they were completely normal to what was happening under the earth's surface. But they just seemed to get worse. His thoughts had started to wander back to sleep, when suddenly, a bolt of lightening hit on one of the hills nearby causing him to jump. Jason had never liked lightning. It had always frightened him. He always thought it was coming to his house to get something dear to him, but he didn't know what. Like a half remembered dream that kept creeping up on him, and he couldn't quite remember what it was. He would need to talk to his mother about his strange dreams.  
Looking over at his clock he realized that it was going to be morning soon and he was going to have to get up in about half an hour anyway. Might as well start your day off early. Besides he had way too much homework to finish. He had to type up a two-page report on the chemical "Frudnicide" by the start of school today. So far he had his name and a catchy title, which consisted of the chemicals name. A quick flash of his mother looking at his paper which had a barley passing grade on it and saying something like, "it's a wonder your in the 12th grade," briefly flashed before his eyes. He decided that he would actually have to write the report in order to stay on his mother's good side.   
Pushing his homework aside and logging onto the virtua-net by way of his VR goggles, he flagged down the nearest search engine he could find and told it to find everything about Frudnicide. He waited there at the search department for a few minutes wondering why his Mom refused to let him get a direct-brain-link Internet card. It was only $55 a month for the fastest Internet connection on the planet. And it was direct to you brain so that you would never forget something that you saw. Excellent for tests, and homework.   
Five minutes later his search engine pulled back in and unloaded a file into the computer that Jason was working on with everything about Frudnicide that he could possibly stand. Jason thanked him and logged out. It was time to start looking through the file for the answer to his homework problem.   
The first location was all about how Frudnicide was a danger to the planet because it would eventually explode taking all signs of life with it. He also noticed that at the bottom of the location there was a link to "The top 25 reasons why the world is going to explode and we will all be destroyed". The next 14 locations were all the same. This wasn't helpful at all. He had to remember to get a better search engine next time. Skimming over the locations he saw one that stood out slightly. The location title read:  
  
Frudnick, Jason- Savior of the world.  
  
Suddenly all thoughts of homework disappeared. Slowly moving up to the location link he clicked on it. Waiting for the dead location page to pop up he turned around to see how Fred was. He was still staring into the sky like there was something interesting glued to his roof. A chime sounded on his computer letting him know that the location was done loading. Immediately Fred hopped over to the side of the glass closest to the computer and croaked lightly. Jason followed Fred's gaze back to the computer and saw a newspaper article dated from 1988. In the short article, it showed a picture of a boy about 18 or 19 wearing a suit and looking very exhausted but pleased with himself. The one paragraph article said this:  
  
"Jason Frudnick, 36, savior of the world, died today of radiation poisoning. His son and daughter were there to see him one last time before he passed on. Jason had saved the world form disaster multiple times by traveling into the center of the earth to fight a creature called The Plutonium Boss. One of his closest friends, Alex Bufoni, commented on how tragic it was that the radiation creature that he had fought for years had finally won out in the end. May he Rest In Peace."  
  
The buzzer on his alarm clock went off. It was 8 o'clock; time to get ready for school.  
  
It turned out that the computer liked Jason's report and was kind enough to give him a "C" on it. His friend Alex wasn't so lucky and had been complaining about it for some time.  
"Does that 'bot even know how much time I spent on that report? It took me a good ten minutes to copy that report from its location and change some of the punctuation around so it would look like I did it!" he yelled.  
"A whole ten minutes, huh?" Jason sarcastically asked," What's the matter, couldn't find a good searcher?"  
"What, at 8 in the morning? Of course not! Everyone's on doing their homework for class."  
"Which reminds me," Jason said suddenly getting serious," I found a strange location on the virtua-net this morning. Think you could come over after school so that I can show it to you? This you have to see."  
"Of course I can come over," Alex replied, "by the way, I've been having that strange dream about me dressed up in a lobster suit again. Crazy huh? Which reminds me, I need to get Plutarch from the vet. He's been making some strange noises at night."  
Jason and Alex took a taxi to the vet and then over to Jason's house. On the way Jason told Alex about Fred's strange behavior. Both boys thought it was a little strange that the vet couldn't find anything wrong with Plutarch, except for the fact that he was very smart, very strong, and very old. The got over to Jason's house and unlocked the front door and tossed their stuff in the living room. They made there way back to Jason's room and opened the door. When he opened it he saw that someone was already on his computer, and judging by the red hair he guessed it to be his cousin, Eve.  
"And what exactly do you think you are doing in my house, in my room, and on my computer?" Jason asked coolly.  
"I am one; using this key that your mom gave me, two; meddling in you room to annoy you, and three; seeing if your computer is still as slow as I remember it. Which it is."  
"Well now that we have all of that figured out, what was it that you wanted to show me?" Alex asked placing the container that held Plutarch down on Jason's bed.  
Jason's sudden lack of words left him. "It was just some article about someone that was called the savior of the world. Here let me pull up the location for you."  
Eve moved out of the way and Jason sat down at the computer. In a few seconds he had the location pulled up on his computer and his friends were reading it.   
"Wow," Alex said, "I wonder if he really saved the world or if someone made that up. More that likely its fake."  
Just then his Mom walked in holding his report.  
"Well a "C". Not bad. Certainly better that Alex, he got a "D" minus."  
"What's the matter," Eve said laughing at him," Couldn't find a good searcher."  
"No I couldn't. And what are you doing going through my backpack anyway?" he asked Jason's mom. But she didn't answer. All she did was drop the two report screens that she was holding and stare at the computer monitor. She had suddenly gone very pale.  
"Where did you find that?" she asked pointing to the computer monitor. Even Alex could tell that this wasn't the time for joking.  
"I...uh...was looking for information on my report and I...uh, kinda' stumbled across it. Why? What's wrong with it?"  
She turned toward the door and said quietly, "Come with me."  
Not knowing exactly why they were in trouble they walked after her. She let them over to her room and opened the door. Then she walked over to her closet and after opening it told all of them to get in. All Jason thought was that this was sure some strange behavior, maybe they were in more trouble that he thought. When all three of them were in the closet she closed the door. She held her hand on the handle and continued to turn it. They all heard a metallic click and the handle started to glow green. Then a panel on the back of the closet slid to one side to reveal a white room on the other side. All three of the teenagers turned around to stare at Jason's mom.  
"Well? What are you waiting for, go in," she said," I have a story to tell you."  
"Oh goodie," said Alex giving Jason a strange look, "story time."   
Upon entering the room the found a few chairs and a table. They sat at the table and waited. Jason's mother started:  
  
It happened a long time ago, in the 1980's to be exact. My great-great-great, well extremely great grandfather killed a creature called the Plutonium Boss. This creature was from outer space and was bent on destroying the planet earth so that it could get more power for itself and in turn take over everything. It started with a lot of earthquakes that occurred all over the world, this was probably because it was trying to burrow through the earth to get to the center of it. For over 10 years Jason fought this creature and many others like it in an effort to keep the earth alive. When he died his children took over the job, and in the face of some serious opposition they also destroyed the Plutonium Boss. They slowly faded into history until all that's left is the occasional rumor or newspaper clipping on the net. It's been 500 years since all of this fighting occurred and everyone has pretty much forgotten about him."  
As she was saying this she took a picture down off the wall and showed it to them. It had a picture three happy looking teenagers wearing radioactive suits. At the bottom of the picture it said "Jason Frudnick with his friends Alex and Eve, just minutes after they saved the world from imminent destruction."  
She continued: "I knew that this day would come sooner or later. I knew it was too big of a chance for the NORAD computer to choose three names at random and somehow pick the same three names as their ancestors. I'm sure at one point I had a story to tell you but I've forgotten it by now. And one more thing. Jason eventually married Eve, but he never told anyone outside of his family that she was from anther planet. And that she had brought something along with her."  
She stopped and pressed the button that was hidden behind the picture. A wall slid open behind them and they all turned around to see what was happening. As the wall finished sliding away they all could clearly see a 4-wheeled tank sitting in some sort of garage. On the side of the tank were the words SOPHIA III.  
His mom looked up at the tank and said," I'm afraid you're going to have to use it soon."  
  
15 minutes later they were all in the living room watching the news. Well at least Jason's mom was, the rest were staring blankly trying to take in everything that they were just told. So far they weren't having any luck at it. Jason's mom decided that that would be a pretty good time to go and make some hot chocolate and let them recover. The news was showing some footage of another country that got hit by a severe earthquake. This one was so powerful that it ripped a hole open in the city. The newscaster said that it was showing high levels of radiation directly in the hole.  
"I'll bet it is him," said Eve coming out of her trance first. "He's back and is trying to take over the earth again. And we three are the only ones that have the power to stop him."  
"So what are you saying, we jump into a tank and go driving off to the center of the earth and pray we don't get killed?" Alex nervously asked.  
"No," Eve replied," I was just noticing that we have the power to stop him. We should do something about it. You know, help out."  
"I actually have to agree with Alex," Jason said," I don't want to get killed or anything, I mean, how would I look dead?"  
Eve was starting to look mad. "Oh come on you two! He is going to destroy this world and as many others as he can if he gets any more powerful, just like he destroyed my planet!"  
"Now calm down, we weren't trying to- wait a minute, what do you mean your planet?"  
"Didn't your mom say something about my planet getting destroyed also. I thought she had. I remember something like that, just not too clearly." Eve said nervously.  
But before anyone had the opportunity to answer, the room started to shake. Not a lot at first but after a while it started to pick up, and within a minute the room was shaking more violently than ever. Everyone ran for cover as pictures and vases came crashing to the floor and smashed all around them. It took a full 5 minutes for the shaking to stop. Jason was the first to recover completely.  
"Is everyone all right?" he called out. He got a few yeses back from Eve and Alex. He carefully ran to the kitchen to see his mom hiding under a table.  
"Now that was a close one. Fortunately I managed to catch your grandmother's antique plate as I dove under the table. I guess that's the only thing that isn't broken." Apparently Jason's mom was ok.  
All four of them stepped outside to see what else had been destroyed. They were shocked at what confronted them next. It was complete Chaos. Some of the buildings had fallen over and all the rest had some severe damage done to them. Looking down Jason saw a hole in his front yard.  
"Now that's one hole," Eve said.  
"Actually that's kind of small looking," Jason said pointing at the hole.  
"Uh, were not talking about that hole buddy," Alex said.  
Jason couldn't help wondering what they were talking about until he saw it. A hole the size of a city block had appeared, fortunately, under an empty part of the city.   
"That's going to happen to the entire world if we don't do something about it soon," said Eve.  
"Well what are we waiting for?" asked Jason, "Lets go and save the world."  
Five minutes time found the four of them in the hidden garage preparing to leave. Each one of them had a jump suit on with their name on it. Jason's Mom was standing in front of them saying things like "stay warm", and, "don't do anything I wouldn't do." The three of them climbed on top of SOPHIA and opened the hatch. Eve climbed in and took the Drivers seat. Jason followed and took the weapons control seat. And Alex climbed farther back where the navigation console was. Eve started up the engine and prepared to drive out the now-opening garage door.  
"Hey wait a second!" Alex yelled from the back, "How come you two get the cool jobs and all I get is the navigation chair? I wanna' fire the guns too!" Apparently he had noticed that he didn't pick the greatest of all places to sit. All Jason could do is laugh and wonder if the original Jason had been as nervous about all of this as he was.  
"OK," Eve called out," Here we go!" With that SOPHIA III sped forward and out of the garage once again to take on Plutonium Boss.  
  
"General, I think you should come and take a look at this!"  
"What is it Ensign? I'm busy."  
"One of the satellites has just come back online."  
"So what! They do that all the time. What's so big about this one?"  
"Well it's just that it's the satellite code named "Sophia"."  
The General did an amazing trick where he dropped his doughnut into his coffee, and then dropped his coffee onto the floor. Everyone else in the room had stopped what they were doing and started to stare at the main monitor which showed SOPHIA III using her hover jets to fly over the hole that had now filled most of the screen. When it was positioned directly over the center, it dropped into the hole, and out of sight.  
"Then its true. It has to be true! If SOPHIA is back in action then he has to be back. Why else would it get sent in?" the General was saying to himself.  
"Who Sir?" asked the ensign," who's back?"  
"The Plutonium Boss. We had some trouble with him hundreds of years back. I always figured that Jason Frudnick would have finished him off, or maybe Rody got'em. But no. He's back."  
"Should we call the President? Have him send the troops in," came a voice from the back.  
"Nope," said the General," the best chance we have of surviving just dropped into that hole."  
"Then what do we do Sir?" asked the Ensign.  
"Wish them luck. What else can we do?" the General replied.  
  



End file.
